After a board meeting, Chronicle Publishing Co. released a statement saying that the company's assets -- including the 134-year-old newspaper and San Francisco's NBC affiliate, KRON-TV -- were being offered in a sale being coordinated by an investment banking firm of Donaldson, Lukin & Jenrette.

Last month, the company had announced it had hired DLJ to explore strategic options. Two weeks later, the resignation of chief financial officer Alan Nichols Jr.

who had been seen as heir to chief executive officer John Sias reinforced the belief that a sale was imminent.

NBC, a division of General Electric Corp., has been mentioned in the trade press as very interested in buying KRON, its affiliate in the nation's fifth largest TV market.

Analysts have said it is unlikely that KRON and the Chronicle could be sold together because of FCC rules prohibiting cross-ownership of a TV station and a newspaper in the same market. The Chronicle was exempt under a "grandfather" clause.

The Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Northern California, with weekday circulation of 475.000, and a colorful history that includes writers from Mark Twain to Jack London to its legendary late gossip columnist, Herb Caen.

The Chronicle was founded in 1865 by brothers Michael and Charles DeYoung. The company is still owned by their descendants, but ownership has become widely dispersed over the generations.

One-third of the shares are owned by Nan Tucker McEvoy and her son Nion McEvoy, who also sits on the Chronicle Publishing board. Members of the Thieriot and Stent families together control another third of the company. The Tobin and Martin families control the remaining third.

Chronicle Publishing also owns two other newspapers, the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph and the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette. It owns two other TV stations: KAKE in Wichita, Kan.; and WOWT in Omaha, Neb.

Other properties include online news and information service SF Gate, cable news channel BayTV, Chronicle Books and MBI, a Wisconsin book publisher. The company employs about 3,200.

The possible sale to Hearst could mean that San Francisco would be left with only one daily newspaper, presumably published in the morning.

Until 2005, The Chronicle and the Examiner are under a joint-operating agreement. Signed in 1965, the JOA allows the two papers to share noneditorial operations such as printing, circulation and advertising. The papers equally share revenues and expenses from their joint operation, the San Francisco Newspaper Agency.

The papers maintain separate, competitive newsrooms. The agreement dictates that The Chronicle publish in the morning and the Examiner in the afternoon, a weaker position that has left the Examiner with only about one-fourth of the Chronicle's circulation. Each paper contributes sections to a combined Sunday edition.